ITT: Odradek does Marxist blogging
The independent form, i.e., the money-form, which the value of commodities assumes in the case of simple circulation, serves only one purpose, namely, their exchange, and vanishes in the final result of the movement. On the other hand, in the circulation M-C-M, both the money and the commodity represent only different modes of existence of value itself, the money its general mode, and the commodity its particular, or, so to say, disguised mode. [12] It is constantly changing from one form to the other without thereby becoming lost, and thus assumes an automatically active character. If now we take in turn each of the two different forms which self-expanding value successively assumes in the course of its life, we then arrive at these two propositions: Capital is money: Capital is commodities. [13] In truth, however, value is here the active factor in a process, in which, while constantly assuming the form in turn of money and commodities, it at the same time changes in magnitude, differentiates itself by throwing off surplus-value from itself; the original value, in other words, expands spontaneously. For the movement, in the course of which it adds surplus-value, is its own movement, its expansion, therefore, is automatic expansion. Because it is value, it has acquired the occult quality of being able to add value to itself. It brings forth living offspring, or, at the least, lays golden eggs...
-Karl Marx, Capital
It will be seen that 61.6 per cent, that is, closer to two-thirds than to one-half, of the staff of administrative bodies now consists of workers. And this already proves that what Trotsky wrote on this matter in his theses was an exercise in bureaucratic projecteering. To talk, argue and write platforms about “one-third to one-half” and “one-half to two-thirds” is the most useless sort of “general Party talk”, which diverts time, attention and resources from production work. It is empty politicking. All this while, a great deal of good could have been done in the commission, where men of experience would have refused to write any theses without a study of the facts, say, by polling a dozen or so “common functionaries” (out of the thousand), by comparing their impressions and conclusions with objective statistical data, and by making an attempt to obtain practical guidance for the future: that being our experience, do we go straight on, or do we make some change in our course, methods and approach, and how; or do we call a halt, for the good of the cause, and check things over and over again, make a few changes here and there, and so on and so forth.
Comrades, a real “executive” (let me also have a go at “production propaganda”) is well aware that even in the most advanced countries, the capitalists and their executives take years—sometimes ten and more—to study and test their own (and others’) practical experience, making innumerable starts and corrections to tailor a system of management, select senior and junior executives, etc., fit for their particular business. That was the rule under capitalism, which throughout the civilised world based its business practices on the experience and habits of centuries...
-VI Lenin, Once Again On The Trade Unions,
This matter appears quite different from the point of view of the interests of the proletariat. The contemporary proletariat, as a social class, is the offspring of the capitalist economy and the bourgeois state. The capitalist society and bourgeois state – taking them not as an abstract idea, but in tangible form as history has created them in each country – were already, from the very beginning, a frame of activity for the proletariat. A bourgeois state – national or not national – is just that foundation, together with capitalistic production as the ruling form of social economy, on which the working class grows and thrives. In this respect, there is a basic historical difference between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The bourgeoisie develops and is carried in the womb of the feudal class system. Aspiring to assure triumph for capitalism as the form of production, and for itself as the ruling class, the bourgeoisie creates the modern state on the ruins of the feudal system. Within the bounds of the development of capitalism and the rule of the bourgeoisie, the proletariat is next to make itself heard politically – still as part of the bourgeois state. But the state was already from the beginning its natural womb, just as the shell of an egg is for the chicken. Therefore, historically speaking, the idea that the modern proletariat could do nothing as a separate and conscious class without first creating a new nation-state, is the same as saying that the bourgeoisie in any country should first of all establish a feudal system, if by some chance it did not come about normally by itself, or had taken on particular forms, as for instance in Russia. The historical mission of the bourgeoisie is the creation of a modern “national” state; but the historical task of the proletariat is the abolition of this state as a political form of capitalism, in which they themselves, as a conscious class, come into existence to establish the socialist system. The proletariat, as part of the whole society, can take part in national movements of the bourgeoisie, where the bourgeois development demands the creation of a “nation-state,” as was the case, for example, in Germany. But then it follows the lead of the bourgeoisie, and does not act as an independent class with a separate political program. The national program of the German socialists in the forties advanced two ideas, directly opposing the national program of the bourgeoisie: unification with borders which would be based strictly on divisions of nationalities, and a republican form of government...
Rosa Luxemburg, The National Question
Everybody's talking 'bout the new sound, funny but it's still Rock and Roll to me
-Billy Joel, Still Rock And Roll To Me
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Comments
carry on
it's still pukey
anyway, Marxism
poetic, a fitting fate indeed